ZebPay’s Avinash Shekhar quits as CEO; to launch new startup

Indian cryptocurrency start-up ZebPay’s Chief Government Officer (CEO) Avinash Shekhar has determined to maneuver on and is anticipated to work on his personal startup. Shekhar’s new startup shall be working within the crypto tax compliance and Internet 3.0 house.

Shekhar will proceed to be ZebPay’s board member and advisor for the long-term. He began working with the cryptocurrency start-up in July 2017 as CFO.

This improvement comes a month after ZebPay’s Chief Monetary Officer (CFO) Tarun Jain left the corporate, reported Moneycontrol quoting sources. It additional said that ZebPay would additionally maintain a minority stake on this new start-up.

In accordance with ZebPay, “Avinash will deal with his start-up later this yr, which is within the Internet 3.0 house. Nonetheless, he’ll proceed to remain in an advisory position on ZebPay, as a director. Rahul has all the time been part of the choices at ZebPay and can proceed to steer the enterprise, going ahead.”

At a time when the cryptocurrency ecosystem in India is grappling with a number of challenges, another members of ZebPay’s senior administration have additionally stop, revealed the sources within the know. Nonetheless, Pagidipati said that it’s largely mid-level employees.

Rahul Pagidipati, Chairman of ZebPay, stated, “Tarun was getting a CEO degree place at his new firm. He knew it might be an extended path right here, so he moved on. Avinash has been my co-captain at ZebPay serving to in turning across the firm.”

The uncertainty within the nation’s crypto trade comes after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman introduced a 30 per cent earnings tax levy on good points from buying and selling in crypto in her Union Finances speech and a world crash in crypto token valuations.

This started impacting the home cryptocurrency trade beginning April this yr. The trade which was already below stress confronted one other blow within the type of a 1 per cent tax deducted at supply (TDS) on digital digital asset transactions in India from July 1.

In accordance with the info from CREBACO World, almost 85-90 per cent of buying and selling volumes at high crypto exchanges – WazirX, Zebpay, CoinDCX and Bitbns – had been worn out between January 1 and July 14 this yr.

A number of crypto start-ups began dealing with a liquidity crunch, and thus needed to take up cost-cutting measures to proceed the enterprise. ZebPay too introduced company-wide pay cuts, with administration taking bigger cuts.

Pagidipati said, “We’re doing what we all the time do. That is simply part of the course, of individuals coming in and going out. I don’t suppose there’s any extra attrition now than there was six months in the past. On this bear market the place crypto corrected 90 per cent, some corporations get stronger, some die and a few grow to be zombie corporations.”

“Across the time of the amount crash in July, many corporations like Coinbase and Vauld had laid off almost half of their employees. We didn’t need to do this. So we needed to make small pay cuts as an alternative. Most of them bought 6 per cent pay-cuts at ZebPay, administration took a better minimize,” he additional added.

Pagidipati, whereas explaining the corporate’s future plans, stated, “We’re repositioning ZebPay as a cryptocurrency monetary advisor, virtually like a crypto investing financial institution. We’ll want laws for that and I consider that shall be in place in three to 4 years. So, in case you are a crypto start-up and need assistance to lift capital, we are able to advise you on that.” ZebPay is exploring turning into a monetary advisor for cryptocurrency start-ups.